CHOIRBOY OR COWBOY'
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• CM's editor Allan Winn spoke on his "impressions the industry through new eyes".
While he acknowledged that hauliers felt picked on by the public in general, the question was "are they satisfied in their feelings?" Who was it, asked Winn, that was the most justified in their complaints? "Is the haulier a choirboy or cowboy?"
Referring to the recent joint FFA/RHA "No need to speed" initiative, Winn claimed that "No end of responsible campaigns" would compensate for the sight of a "scruffy old tippe crunching its way over kerbs and blocking traffic."
Some 20% (or one in five) of all HGVs put up fox the annual test failed, said Winn "and presumably those vehicles are prepared and their most glaring faults rectified before an inspector sees them!"
On the touchy subject of overloading, he reported that there were 36,000 convictions last year, 50% up since 1976.
Shifting to business matters, Winn said that too many hauliers were in the business for the wrong reasons.
just 26% of all unquoted hauliers were making a pretax profit of more than 5%. As this was the level of inflation, in crude terms all those returning less thai 5% made a loss. Indeed the overall pre-tax returns for the haulage industry we actually just over 2%. "In real terms, gentlemen, you lost money as an industry.'
On the thorny subject of rates Winn noted "You all complain about rates, but what do you do about it?" Maybe, said Winn, the RH! could "educate the market'' to go for quality rather that the lowest quote. The industry's obsession with initial vehicle costs instead of whole life costs also came under fire.